Britain must 'work at' becoming a more integrated society, Ed Miliband said today, as he outlined plans for a 'comprehensive strategy' to deal with the pressures of a multi-ethnic society.

The Labour leader admitted his party had failed to control immigration or deal with racial and ethnic segregation in Britain's cities during its last spell in government.

He vowed not to sweep 'deep anxieties' about the impact of immigration under the carpet and signalled that he was prepared to 'look at' the impact of a Government cap on immigration from outside the EU - a policy he has heavily criticised.

But he hailed the London Olympics as a symbol of the successes of the UK as a diverse community and set out measures on language, housing and the workplace to help strengthen it further.

In a speech in Tooting, south London, Mr Miliband received loud applause when he insisted that contrary to what figures like the blackshirt Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell and BNP leader Nick Griffin suggested, the multi-ethnic Britain shown in this week's census and in the summer's Olympic and Paralympic Games was a cause for celebration.

Drawing on his own parents' experience as Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, Mr Miliband said: "We should celebrate multi-ethnic diverse Britain. We are stronger for it - and I love Britain for it.

"Britain is at its best when it comes together as a nation, not when it stands divided. That's what One Nation is about.

"But at the same time we know there is anxiety about immigration and what it means for our culture. The answer is not to sweep it under the carpet or fail to talk about it, nor is it to make promises that can't be kept.

"It is to deal with all of the issues that concern people."

Mr Miliband accepted that there are concerns about the 'pace of change' in British life due to immigration, particularly in specific areas which have witnessed high numbers of new arrivals.

"The capacity of our economy to absorb new migrants has outrun the capacity of some of our communities to adapt," he said.

"The last Labour government made mistakes in this regard. We have said we will learn lessons from eastern European migration and ensure maximum transitional controls in future. And we will look at how the Government's immigration cap works in practice.

"But I believe we can all cope with these pressures if we recognise them and understand how to respond."

Previous Labour administrations were "overly optimistic" in assuming that integration would happen by itself and people from different racial backgrounds "would learn to get on together... automatically", he said.

"We've got to work at it," he said. "We can't just say it'll come in itself.

"This week's census showed that people of mixed race are among the fastest-growing group in the population of our country, a development with which our country is at ease.

"The goal of an integration strategy should be to "build a new way of living together as one nation, where we overcome division without asking people to lose their sense of themselves - a Britain where people of all backgrounds, all races, all ethnicities, all cultures, can practice their own religion, continue their own customs, but also come together to forge a new and better identity."

Under his new plans, Labour would put English language teaching for immigrants ahead of funding for translating non-essential information into their mother tongues, he said.

Parents of foreign-born children would be required to take responsibility in home-school agreements for them learning English, and the number of public sector jobs for which proficiency in English is mandatory would be increased.

The party would crack down on landlords who cram newcomers to the UK into overcrowded homes and would end the use of tied housing and forced indebtedness which lock migrant workers into atrocious housing conditions. And Mr Miliband promised to ban recruitment agencies from advertising only for workers from particular countries and be tougher in enforcing laws designed to eliminate shift patterns which leave people working only with others from the same ethnic background.

"If we work hard, and we work together, we can build One Nation," the Labour leader said.

"So that we have a fair nation not an unjust one; a connected nation where everyone has a stake, not a segregated one; a confident nation, not an anxious one.

"A proper One Nation strategy for integration needs to revolve around issues that are central to people's lives including language, housing, and the workplace."

Prime Minister David Cameron said Labour had left the immigration system in "complete and utter meltdown" that allowed two Birmingham-sized cities worth of people arrive in the UK in a decade.

And he defended the Government's decision to include students within its target to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands - something Mr Miliband dismissed as "odd".

Asked about the impact on students coming from India and elsewhere Mr Miliband said: "The way they are trying to get to that target is by stopping people coming in.

"Nobody is in favour of so-called bogus colleges...but when you have got students who want to come and spend their money here, train here, contribute to our higher education system, contribute to our economy, it doesn't seem to make any sense."

"I hope they will think again," he added - saying Business Secretary Vince Cable and others within the Government also wanted the change.

Mr Cameron, asked about the issue in Brussels, told reporters: "We want Britain to be a magnet for the brightest and the best. The shutting of these bogus colleges of course has helped us to get net migration down by 25% over the last year, but we've actually seen the number of foreign students applying to British universities going up.

"I believe it's totally possible to get the brightest and the best to come here while having the proper rigorous control of immigration.

"The challenge for Ed Miliband is - will you now support the changes we've made to student visas, the closure of the bogus colleges, the cap on unskilled migrants from outside the EU?

"Will you now support these steps that you opposed and for 13 years refused to put into place?"

Mr Farage said: "What Ed Miliband has done is effectively admit that the Ukip policy on immigration was right all along. It is a mainstream position, including the belief that immigrants should demonstrate good English language skills before settling in the country, which is something he too now advocates.

"He even recognises widespread concern about what high levels of immigration may mean for British culture. It sounds like he has been studying our manifesto. For years we have been persecuted for talking candidly about immigration. It would be a great positive if finally we can have an open debate instead of treating the matter as taboo."